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Jump to Lightspeed basics
The Jump to Lightspeed expansion introduces a host of new concepts and content to Star Wars Galaxies. Space combat, much like its ground counterpart, involves a wide variety of equations and abilities that directly affect your succes when flying. Though touted for its emphasis on Twitch gameplay, players certainly benefit from understanding the basics underneath their pilot abilities, ship performance, droid routines, and component effectiveness. NOTE: As of 9 November 2005, Jump to Lightspeed is a free download available to all players of SWG. Damage and Death Your ship has two means of withstanding damage from enemies: shields (primary protection) and armor, provided both are installed. These two systems both absorb damage from incoming fire, protecting your ship and its components from harm; without either, any damage you took in combat would immediately destroy your components and chassis, resulting in a swift death. Shields naturally recharge over time and can be manipulated with various droid routines; damaged armor can only be repaired by a space station or repair kit. When you are hit by enemy fire, the game server completes several calculations to determine the effects of the onslaught: # The damage to be done to your craft is calculated by generating a random number between the attacking weapon's Minimum and Maximum Damage values. This number will now be called "damage". # Server determines the location where your ship is hit. This location is simplified to either "front" or "back". # If you have a shield generator installed, a check is made to see if your shield at the determined hit location has any energy available to withstand the blast. If your shield has more energy than the calcuated damage multiplied by the weapon's Effectiveness vs. Shields value, then your shield loses energy equal to that value (damage times effectiveness), and the damage calculation finishes. # If your shield does not have enough energy to fully absorb the attack, it loses all remaining energy. The server then calculates the amount of damage that "overflows" the shields. # The remaining damage is then applied similarly to your armor at the hit location. If your armor has higher Armor Hitpoints than the remaining damage multiplied by the weapon's Effectiveness vs. Armor, then the armor loses Armor Hitpoints equal to that value (damage times effectiveness), and the calculation finishes. # If your armor does not have enough Armor Hitpoints to fully absorb the remaining damage, then it loses all remaining Armor Hitpoints. The server once again calculates overflow damage. # The second overflow damage value is then applied to your ship's components and chassis. If your attacker is manually targeting a component, that component will take the remaining damage. Otherwise, a random component (or your ship chassis) will take the remaining damage. Components take damage as described in the next section. Note that armor and shields also count as components outside of their role in directly absorbing damage. # Your ship is destroyed when your chassis hitpoints hit 0. Component Armor and Hitpoints All ship components share two primary properties that govern the amount of damage they can withstand in combat: Hitpoints and Armor Hitpoints (hereafter referred to as straight "armor"). Damage to a component's armor has no effect upon its performance; damage to hitpoints, however, will reduce a component's usefulness. A component that has 0 hitpoints remaining is considered "disabled" and cannot be used: a disabled engine prevents you from moving, disabled weapon cannot be fired, disabled shield will not regenerate, etc. Damage to components follows the succeeding steps, all following Step 7 of Damage and Death: # For the selected component, the damage remaining after overflowing shields and armor is applied to the component's armor. If the damage is less than the total remaining armor, then the component armor is reduced by the damage, and the calculation finishes. Otherwise, overflow damage is calculated as before. # Overflow damage is applied directly to the component's hitpoints. Component's effectiveness drops with the severity of the damage, ending at disabled status when hitpoints are reduced to zero. Component hitpoints and armor can both be repaired at a space station or with repair kits. There is no lasting damage to ship components from repairing. Droid Routines One novel feature of JTL is your ability to interact with your ship's astromech (or flight computer) to tweak various parts of your ship's performance. These tweaks can perform a range of tasks, from reinforcing your shields with weapon energy to overloading your engine to provide higher output. Execution time All droid routines have an inherent "level" which reflects where in a Pilot tree the routine is granted. Routines provided at the first box in each Pilot profession's Droid branch have a level of 1; routines at the final box have a level of 4, with other routines falling logically between 1 and 4. Droid Routines take a certain amount of time, expressed in seconds, that they lock the interface for. Note that the routine specified is executed instantaneously: if you run Moderate Front Shield Reinforcement, you will immediately see your front shield strength increase. The time merely specifies how long you must wait before executing another routine. As of Chapter 8 Droid routines have had their execution times greatly reduced.Chapter 8 Update Notes from SOE also archived on swg.wikia.com The following is unconfirmed,Droid Routine FAQ on SOE's Pilot Forum but widely accepted: * Overloads (ex: Reactor Overload) - Interface Speed / 4 * Capacitor to Shield Shunt - Interface Speed * All other routines should run at Interface Speed / 2 Astromech levels As you progress through your pilot tree, you will gain access to more sophisticated astromech computers. These computers are rated on a level from 1 to 6 that reflects the amount of storage they possess for saving droid routines. These amounts are as listed: * Level 1: 20 * Level 2: 40 * Level 3: 70 * Level 4: 110 * Level 5: 125 * Level 6: 150 Higher-level astromechs do not execute routines faster; only a faster droid interface will speed your routines. Data size Your astromech droid (or flight computer), depending on its level, has a limited amount of routine data it can hold. Each droid routine has a data size that specifies exactly how much of your astromech's memory it occupies when loaded. Generally, routines have data sizes of 5, 10, 20, and 40, for levels 1-4 respectively, though exceptions do exist. These numbers are listed on each Pilot profession page, as well as individual routine pages. Pilot Abilities Progressing in a Pilot profession provides access to a number of abilities for use in space. These abilities range from providing boosts to shield recharge rates to calling in an NPC strike squad to attack your current target. All abilities have a chance to succeed based on your Pilot Special Tactics skill modifier. In fact, your success rate is exactly equal to your current modifier value: at a mod of +20, your abilities have a 20% success rate; at +100 (Master level), your abilities will always succeed. Pilot Commands Pilot commands are typed commands to assist in creating macros for use in flying. Category:Jump to Lightspeed Notes